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The changing role of women during World War One
The changing role of women during World War One
How does the media promote gender stereotypes
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In the late 19th century and early 20th century, women in the United States were thought of as inferior. Men did anything they possibly could do, to prevent women from entering certain parts of the industry. They supported their actions with ideas such as "Men are stronger than women". The majority of fighter planes were built by men and it was also men who worked in most of the factories that produced cars and other transportation vehicles, thus implying that technology was a man's job. Women’s jobs included: seamstresses, secretaries, nurses, phone operators, and a majority were housewives. World War II gave middle class women an opportunity to show what they could do. This War changed the social status and working lives of women. World War II helped grow opportunities and confidence among women. It sharpened their skills as they worked in industries that supplied and supported the war. WWII changed the roles of women forever. During World War II there were many job opportunities for women. Since husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers went to fight in the war, the women went to work in factories, offices, and even on military bases. These women went to work in paying jobs that were usually for men. Some women supported the war and became journalists, photographers, nurses and broadcasters. They were covering the biggest story ever, the men that were at war and the women that were at home doing the man’s work. Other women even joined the military. They were not put in front line positions,but they did important jobs like spies, nursing, making guns’ bayonets and aircrafts parts. Women were extremely hard working to the extent that they had to take care of their husband’s businesses back home while they were fighting and many l... ... middle of paper ... ...Networks, 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 16 Mar. 2014. . "Roles for women in WWII." State Library of Victoria Ergo. State Library of Victoria Ergo, 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 16 Mar. 2014. . United States. National Park Service. "Rosie the Riveter: Women Working During World War II." National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 17 Mar. 2014. . "Women in World War Two." History Learning Site. Chris Trueman, 1 Jan. 2013. Web. 17 Mar. 2014. . Yellin, Emily. Our mothers' war: American women at home and at the Front during World War II. New York: Free Press, 2004. Print. MLA formatting by BibMe.org.
Even though the real-life munitions worker was one of the basis of the Rosie campaign it took on a persona of its own. This persona was a fictitious character that was strong and bandanna-clad (“American Women in World War II”). Rosie was one of the most success recruitment tools in American history, and one of the most iconic images of working women during World War II. The most prominent image of Rosie the Riveter popularized in American culture was the version featured on the “We Can Do It!” posters created by the United States government (Hawkes). The Rosie the government made has a resemblance to Rockwell’s Rosie, but she is less masculine. This propaganda poster of Rosie the Riveter employed by the United States government was popular because she appealed to the sense of patriotism and common goal of the Second World War. Upgraded Rosie also showed that women could retain their femininity and womanhood in their service. Every Rosie the Riveter image played to this prevailing sense of patriotism that abounded in America during World War II. Patriotism was used as a primary motivator to recruit women for war work. Most American women had husbands, brothers, sons, and fiancés fighting on the frontlines of the war, so the women felt compelled to provide to make a contribution as citizens at home. Most of the time woman had to take care of their children and household while
American women in World War II brought significant changes which although people expectation that life would go back to normal they modify their lifestyle making women free of society pressure and norms, because the war changed the traditional way to see a woman and their roles leading to a new society where women were allowed to study and work in the same way than men. Creating a legacy with the principles of today’s society.
World War Two was the period where women came out of their shells and was finally recognized of what they’re capable of doing. Unlike World War One, men weren’t the only ones who were shined upon. Women played many significant roles in the war which contributed to the allied victory in World War Two. They contributed to the war in many different ways; some found themselves in the heat of the battle, and or at the home front either in the industries or at homes to help with the war effort as a woman.
For the first time women were working in the industries of America. As husbands and fathers, sons and brothers shipped out to fight in Europe and the Pacific, millions of women marched into factories, offices, and military bases to work in paying jobs and in roles reserved for men in peacetime. Women were making a living that was not comparable to anything they had seen before. They were dependent on themselves; for once they could support the household. Most of the work in industry was related to the war, such as radios for airplanes and shells for guns. Peggy Terry, a young woman who worked at a shell-loading plant in Kentucky, tells of the money that was to be made from industrial work (108). “We made a fabulous sum of thirty-two dollars a week. To us that was an absolute miracle. Before that, we made nothing (108)." Sarah Killingsworth worked in a defense plant. " All I wanted to do was get in the factory, because they were payin more than what I'd been makin. Which was forty dollars a week, which was pretty good considering I'd been makin about twenty dollars a week. When I left Tennessee I was only makin two-fifty a week, so that was quite a jump (114)." Terry had never been able to provide for herself as she was able to during the war. " Now we'd have money to buy shoes and a dress and pay rent and get some food on the table. We were just happy to have work (108).” These women exemplify the turn around from the peacetime to wartime atmosphere on the home front. The depression had repressed them to poverty like living conditions. The war had enabled them to have what would be luxury as compared to life before.
The Web. The Web. 18 Mar. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/wwIIbayarea/womenatwar.htm>. Reinhardt, Claudia and Bill Ganzel. "
Sorensen, Aja, Rosie the Riveter: Women Working during World War II. Retrieved from http://www.nps.gov/pwro/collection/website/rosie.htm, (n.d.)
“At the war’s end, even though a majority of women surveyed reported wanted to keep their jobs, many were forced out by men returning home and by the downturn in demand for war materials… The nation that needed their help in
Harris, Carol. " Women Under Fire in World War Two." BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web.
When all the men were across the ocean fighting a war for world peace, the home front soon found itself in a shortage for workers. Before the war, women mostly depended on men for financial support. But with so many gone to battle, women had to go to work to support themselves. With patriotic spirit, women one by one stepped up to do a man's work with little pay, respect or recognition. Labor shortages provided a variety of jobs for women, who became street car conductors, railroad workers, and shipbuilders. Some women took over the farms, monitoring the crops and harvesting and taking care of livestock. Women, who had young children with nobody to help them, did what they could do to help too. They made such things for the soldiers overseas, such as flannel shirts, socks and scarves.
Hartmann, Susan M. The Home Front and Beyond: American women in the 1940s. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982
Williams, Rudi. "United States Department of Defense." Defense.gov News Article: Civilian Women Played Major Role in World War II Victory. 30 May 2004. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. .
The article was published on February 6, 1943 in the midst of World War II. Women had become an asset to the war effort and were then considered "At Home Soldiers" or "Riveters". They worked in the factories constructing submarines for the Navy, planes for the Air Force, and became medics.
Rosie the riveter was the face of recruiting women into the Armed Forces during WWII. The increasing demand for soldiers was not being filled fast enough by just males. As a result, between the years 1940 and 1945, the percentage of female service members increased from 27% to 37%. Even on the civilian side of things, the ratio of married working women outside of their homes increased to one out of every four. The population of women that did not join the war was prompted by Rosie the Riveter’s iconic image of working in one of the many munitions industries throughout the US.
The film titled, “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter”, looks at the roles of women during and after World War II within the U.S. The film interviews five women who had experienced the World War II effects in the U.S, two who were Caucasian and three who were African American. These five women, who were among the millions of women recruited into skilled male-oriented jobs during World War II, shared insight into how women were treated, viewed and mainly controlled. Along with the interviews are clips from U.S. government propaganda films, news reports from the media, March of Time films, and newspaper stories, all depicting how women are to take "the men’s" places to keep up with industrial production, while reassured that their duties were fulfilling the patriotic and feminine role. After the war the government and media had changed their message as women were to resume the role of the housewife, maid and mother to stay out of the way of returning soldiers. Thus the patriotic and feminine role was nothing but a mystified tactic the government used to maintain the American economic structure during the world war period. It is the contention of this paper to explore how several groups of women were treated as mindless individuals that could be controlled and disposed of through the government arranging social institutions, media manipulation and propaganda, and assumptions behind women’s tendencies which forced “Rosie the Riveter” to become a male dominated concept.
During America’s involvement in World War Two, which spanned from 1941 until 1945, many men went off to fight overseas. This left a gap in the defense plants that built wartime materials, such as tanks and other machines for battle. As a result, women began to enter the workforce at astonishing rates, filling the roles left behind by the men. As stated by Cynthia Harrison, “By March of [1944], almost one-third of all women over the age of fourteen were in the labor force, and the numbers of women in industry had increased almost 500 percent. For the first time in history, women were in the exact same place as their male counterparts had been, even working the same jobs. The women were not dependent upon men, as the men were overseas and far from influence upon their wives.